Tuesday, November 16, 2010

I Am A Semi Transparent Eye

November seems to be Serious Month here, much like October was Halloween Month. Things will be getting less serious again in the near future, but lately I haven't been in the mood for putting out the usual Comedy Gold. I've been doing a lot of thinking over here, and life has been more stressful than usual. It happens. Time for a deep thought here.


Earlier I was thinking about how popular retro-styled movies (prequels, remakes) are right now. This is nothing new... it's been like that for years. I came up with a theory as to why this is. People are naturally nostalgic, but my theory goes beyond that and gets down to the matter of the predominant generation in our society... the one everyone markets to. My generation... the 20somethings. Via the internet we've got more social connections than any generation before us; yet at the end of the day, most of us are pretty alone. Given our issues as adults - issues with said loneliness, issues with our lack of financial stability - we long to retreat into our youth.

To take a less sympathetic tack, throwbacks are as popular as they are with our generation because we are a legion of spoiled kids finding ourselves getting savagely beaten down by the real world. Most of my generation is messed up emotionally if not physically, unsure of the point of war, unsure of our sexuality, unsure of our leaders, unsure of ourselves, unsure of our friends, unsure of whether or not we're worth a damn compared to our parents. Anything that takes some of my generation back to their youth, at least mentally, is viewed with the kind of reverence that we usually reserve for drugs, alcohol, and hanging onto our screwed-up relationships with people who cheat on us.


Pessimistic? Naw. I'm not saying that we're going off a cliff here. Society will survive just like it has under every other generation. My generation has enough great minds to ensure that. I'm just saying that it has turned into a bumpy ride, and remakes of beloved older properties are one way for the movie industry to temporarily transport us back to when we believed that all things were possible.

3 comments:

  1. Great read! I disagree though. Our generation is just open to new ideas and learning more about themselves as other generations have. Of course human beings look down upon anything younger/less experienced than them and say things like "Your generation is doomed" because we aren't within their generation. As we grow we will see the consequences we have implemented on ourselves but it's all about personal growth and pursuit of happiness in the end.

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  2. Every generation has its problems, but it's easy to argue that fewer people of value are gonna be coming out of this one than the norm. Fortunately for society, it'll still be enough to keep things running.

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  3. I think we grew up with games so we keep buying them, the way our parents grew up with albums and keep buying them. It's nice to have familiarity in our entertainment: it's quicker than getting into something new.

    However, you're not the only one following this thread: I've heard people say that sports get more and more popular because they're an escape from the harsh realities of life. And I've read plenty of articles saying the Baby Boomers, our parents, were spoiled and weak compared to The Greatest Generation. "Bastards of Young" was Generation X's song about this.

    To which I say...hardship focuses the mind, and most unfocused people come upon hardship sooner or later. Now, for example, since unemployment, especially among youth, higher than ever. The Greatest Generation had a lot of hardship. The Indians and Chinese have faced a lot of hardship. If it comes for us, that might not be a bad thing.

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